I have blogged a few times lately about attempts publishers are making the price of content on the internet (here and here, if you’re interested). Traditional media sources and content producers have always struggled with creating a profitable online model, and the rise of the smartphone and the tablet both highlights the issues they are facing, and presents new opportunities for a solution.  Two more attempts at this solution have been getting publicity recently. First, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp has announced it’s plans for a new, national US publication designed specifically for the iPad. The publication is will feature short, snappy news stories (take this to mean lots of pictures, little in the way of analysis) and has been created with the goal of “having young people read newspapers”.   The second thing which got me thinking about it was a story about a series of new magazines created specifically for tablets, called Nomad Editions. Basically, the idea behind is that they’ll produce 5 “editions” around specific topics (food, movies, surfing, viral video, etc), published weekly, which users will be able to subscribe to. It will be built using an interesting technology called Treesaver , which allows users to view ther same content, using the same addresses, on their desktop or mobile device.

These are both nice ideas, but they both seem inspired by a premise I’m not sure I agree with. Mark Edmiston, CEO of Nomad, claimed that Nomad was borne of that fact that “…people reading on their iPads, they’re reading a different way”. Rupert Murdoch made similar claims about his national newspaper concept. The implication in both cases is that the new technology necessitates new content, as well as new content delivery. (more…)

Igloo has taken the Mazda Australia website into the mobile realm, bringing a number of key features for users who are on-the-go.   This includes all the details on Mazda’s vehicle range, a dealer locater, roadside assistance information, as well as news and latest offers.  The site is compatible with modern mobile browsers and has been optimised for iPhone, Blackberry and Android.  iPhone users can also get touch happy with a swipe-able gallery of vehicle ranges.

Check it out on your device of choice simply by visiting the Mazda Australia website or directly at m.mazda.com.au.

It was just one remarkable factor in a remarkable campaign, but it’s still surprising just how effectively Barack Obama was able to utilise social media and digital campaigning in his 2008 presidential campaign. He pushed his message and brand, generated support and mobilised financial backers. He attacked and diminished his opponent, without cheapening himself or tarnishing his image. Through this success in the “new media” he was also able to highlight the age difference between himself and his opponent, and add credence to his message of being the harbinger of change and innovation.

In considering the lessons this offers for the upcoming Australian election, there are a few qualifiers. The Obama social media campaign, particularly My Barack Obama, were primarily fund raising exercises. As well as financial factors, the length of the American campaign and the reliance on volunteers to facilitate their campaign rallies (occasionally quite elaborate affairs), so mobilization of supporters is vital just to keep the campaign running smoothly. As well, the Australian campaign is (mercifully) significantly shorter than it’s American equivalent and at a set time, which brings significant planning advantages.

Despite this, there’s a lot both sides can learn from Obama’s campaign, and from what’s happened since. Here, then, are the 5 tips we would give both parties, should they ask, about how they should conduct themselves digitally during the campaign. We are offering the advice to both parties because we are wise and benevolent like King Solomon and Quentin Bryce.

1. The Normal Rules of Twitter Don’t Apply (for the campaign period only)

I’m going to get slightly controversial with this one. For the next week or so, before the campaign hots up, expect to see several stories about Gillard and Abbott’s presence on Twitter. 90% of these will be bookended by a quote from a “social media expert” of some description, who’ll advise them that they are “broadcasting” too much, and that they need to “engage in conversation” (never “have more conversations”, for some reason) with their followers. Ordinarily, fine and sensible advice. Post-election, it’s just what they should be doing.  But right now, I’m not so sure. (more…)

I read a great report last month predicting more people will access the web via mobile devices than desktop PCs by 2014 (source).  And already now we’re seeing the big players capitalize on this market:

• YouTube Mobile gets over 100 million video playbacks a day (source).
• 1.5 million items were purchased from eBay via a mobile device last year (source).
• Facebook has 100 million active mobile internet users who access the service twice as often (source).
• 1.7 million iPhone 4 handsets were sold in the first 4 days – the most successful product launch in Apple’s history (source).

And us Aussies are getting on board
Australia is punching above its weight division when it comes to mobile internet. Our 3G coverage (think fast data downloads, video streaming, VOIP…) sits at 56% (source) and ranks 3rd behind Japan and Korea. This is supported by 43% of Australians having web capable mobile handsets. And the key activities we’re using our mobile web devices for are Search (73%); news & weather (59%); email (58%) maps/navigation (56%); Social networking (39%) (source).

Should your business be building a mobile site or app?
Too many companies focus solely on driving users to their websites. A smarter approach would be to focus on giving users the content they want, when they want it, in the context of the environment they are in.

When working with Mazda to determine whether m.mazda.com.au was a good idea we posed the following questions:

1. Do customers want your content whilst away from their computers? E.G. Reading news and reviews, checking sports scores and stock market info, watching uni lectures
2. Are customers trying to find you whilst on the move? E.G. Restaurants, hotels, retail outlets, dealerships
3. Do you have engaging video and audio to share with your customers? E.G. Interviews, product demos, customer videos
4. Could time or location specific offers to customers be valuable?
5. Do you want customers to engage and respond immediately to your above-the-line ads?  E.G. See a billboard or newspaper ad and clicking straight to your mobile site.
6. Do you want your customers giving you their thoughts, comments, ideas, photos, videos or opinions as they have them?
7. Are more and more customers trying to access your normal site from mobile devices?

The other thing we did was to review the unique attributes of mobile devices to determine whether these could be used to enhance the experience. Here’s a list of the features available today.

Regardless of whether you use mobile internet to engage with your audience one thing is for sure. Mobile devices and the mobile web are going to provide more engaging, responsive, and context specific offerings moving forward. And that’s good for all of us.

When you hear the phrase “Queen of the Internet”, you’re probably inclined to think of Lady Gaga or, if you are a traditionalist Tia Tequila.  But the title’s also been given to Mary Meeker , a Managing Director at investment bank Morgan Stanley. Meeker, who heads up the bank’s global technology research team, earned the title after the publication of her ground breaking  if unimaginatively titled  The Internet Report in 1995. The report successfully predicted much of the dot.com boom, and despite the bubble’s bursting in 2000, has been highly regarded and closely followed by investors and the tech industry every since.

Meeker’s 2010 Report was released to the public last month, and again, it’s full of fascinating information.  It’s particularly strong on the rise and rise of mobile computing and the flow on effect this boom is having on innovation and customer expectation. It finds:

- The growth of mobile internet is unprecedented, with the inflection point where the number of smart phones shipped surpasses PCs predicted to be reached as soon as 2012. Smart phones shipments have already overtaken feature phones in the USA. They have been the biggest growth drivers of computing devices in history. The report notes that wireless options are growing rapidly to meet this demand, and that the demands of wireless consumers have expanded massively year on year since the device’s launch. (more…)

After a bit of grovelling and negotiating I’ve finally been allowed to ditch the iPhone and replace it with the new HTC Desire (w00t!), and I thought now would be a good time to document my Android experience thus far. So here are my thoughts about it from the first few days..

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A chuffed Angus came into the office today. Half slept but with a look in his eye that said “I just bought an iPad”.

Everyone, as expected was pretty excited to touch it’s glassy face, but I only had one thing on my mind. Does Sitecore work on it?

The definitive answer is… *Yes!

* For the most part…

I hate to harp on about Apple but it’s hard to avoid at the moment. Steve Jobs’ essay “Thoughts on Flash” this week lit a firecracker underneath the already over-effusive internet flame war that is Flash vs Silverlight vs HTML5. It’s nothing new from Apple, but it’s a real line in the sand and clearly not up for debate.

What Steve had to say about Flash:

First, there’s “Open”….
Second, there’s the “full web”….
Third, there’s reliability, security and performance…
Fourth, there’s battery life….
Fifth, there’s Touch…
Sixth, the most important reason… We cannot be at the mercy of a third party deciding if and when they will make our enhancements available to our developers.

Conclusions.
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So Apple’s WWDC has finally been announced and will run from June 7 to 11 at the Moscone Center West, San Francisco. Apple is calling this year “The Center of the App Universe”, which presumably means there will be a big focus on the app driven platforms; iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch. The WWDC has always been Steve Jobs’ big chance to tell the world what he’s been up to in his awed keynote, but has Gizmodo’s leak taken the thunder out of the party?

Gizmodo has leaked the new iPhone and revealed all the clever new features;

• 2 cameras for video chat,
• improved back camera
• flash
• micro-sim
• improved display
• second mic presumably for noise cancellation
• new metallic buttons
• new design
• bigger batter
• etc. etc. etc.

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Evernote
My favourite noting web app! Not just for developers, evernote synchs your notes, snap photos, and recorded voice memos to your phone, desktop app or access it using the smooth web admin if you are away from your machine / device, easy!

Remote desktop lite
Remote into your Windows XP Professional or Vista/Windows 7 PC anytime

FTP on the go
I’ve tried a few FTP apps for iPhone and this one is by far my favourite, it ships with a text editor for on the fly edits, hit save and push your changes to live.  Also has ability to set a master password for the app. Automatically uses secure FTPS connection. Also the Smart Replace feature is pretty cool. If for example someone calls you while you are uploading a file and the transfer is interrupted, you get another backup version created of the file with a temp file name, which will only replace the actual file when the upload is complete

jQuery · «touch» Cheat Sheet
Brush up on your selectors in transit!

What are some of the iPhone apps on your shortlist?